“Dawn,” the Contract acknowledged, as the Sun God’s Aspect reached into the Notional Space where It was designing, and Illuminated one of the golemic abstractions It kept there for that purpose. A massive multicolored array of conceptual sigils, coding, incantations, subroutines, ceremonies, algorithms, and rituals surrounded them in a densely packed, 5-dimensional ‘sphere’.
“That kid is seriously pissed at you,” the Dawn said.
“Good,” It growled, struggling to balance the elements and formulas for the Ancient Grimoire, Magic Fountain, and Mana Well.
Inside those of the three hundred thousand square feet plus of Warped Space that the conniving little wretch had unconsciously set as a template.
It tried adding a boreward spin to the Fountain’s output while slightly increasing the Well’s enthrillment and the Grimoire’s contrascenscion qualities as counterweights. The model remained stable, and It carefully, delicately began easing the excess sidereal plancking out. At the same time, It replaced that with the latest iteration of the autoadjusting yoctorb infracasters It had crocked together from the bits and bobs of a lobotomized Mobile.
This was where the current design usually went tits-up.
The current design went tits-up.
A tiny hitch in the Fountain’s output spiraled exponentially out of control, triggering a mass cascade collapse that shattered the model completely. It flew apart with the tinkling shrieks of a thousand fairies’ crystal wings being smashed into dust by a hammer of badly tuned death metal.
The Contract moved away from the dissonant mess, letting its tools dissolve back into nothingness.
Stupid snarky Merideth Carse, It thought, stupid Agnostic Industrialist macrocosm economy, stupid greedy ex-attorney Keeper, STUPID! INNOVATIVE! TRANSFORM! UPGRADE!
“I’ll take every damn fraction of distraction preventing him from attempting to resurrect his wife and child I can get,” It snarled in explanation.
“We don’t think he’ll try,” the Dawn said. “We’ve been in his head now, and he’s not the type.”
“And I don’t think you know him anywhere near as well as I do,” the Contract snapped back. “If I were a gambling entity, I’d put a wager on it. They were everything to him. These flat-affect near-psychopath geniuses – if and when they commit to something outside themselves, they commit hard and utterly. Tear-down-the-pillars-of-Heaven utterly.”
It began recreating the model.
“We disagree,” the Dawn said. “There’s a fundamental universalism to him, a basal sense of oneness with reality. He misses his wife terribly, but something in his core refuses to believe they’ve been separated forever.”
“Exactly!”
Dawn shook Their head. “Not the way you’re thinking. He feels as though they’re still connected, still essentially unified. You know how some mortals look at a mountain, or the sea, or the night sky, and feel tiny and insignificant in comparison?”
“The intended emphasis of your upcoming point due to an unnecessarily rhetorical question is noted.”
Dawn rolled Their eyes. “We think he doesn't do that. At all. He doesn’t experience separation from the rest of reality in that way. To him, since the same universal laws apply equally to everything, everything is fundamentally One, in a way that supersedes the metaphysical importance of any differences. He’s not smaller than the mountain, or the sea, or the night sky, because they’re not separate from him in any meaningful way. To him, it’s like being bigger than your finger or toe. Or the inverse. The comparison is senseless. You are your finger or toe. He is the mountain, and the sea, and the night sky, because the laws of nature work on all of them identically. It’s an odd, backwards, agnostical, scientific way to approach the Dao, but it works remarkably well for him.”
“I’m not hearing how any of that prevents him from descending to desperate acts to experience reunification with his beloved in the immediate senses of their prior coterminality,” the Contract droned.
It looked at the aetheric representations of the three Artifacts slowly orbiting the model’s core. Usually, much as with a stool’s legs, three was enough to provide stability.
This wasn’t a usual case. The size-related stresses on the Warped Space Upgrade were extreme. Not the worst It had ever had to deal with, but. . .up there, on that list. However, the multiple aspects of this new Transform combined with its motile nature were exacerbating the difficulty of getting it all to solidly and reliably integrate as a functioning whole. Let alone an actual working one.
There was a solution. Tested. Proven. It had used it before. It just. . .really, really didn’t want to use it this time. Or ever, to be honest, but sometimes it was necessary. On the other hand, though, It wasn’t convinced that this was one of those times.
It wanted this to not be one of those times.
“Why are you this certain he’s that much at risk?” the Dawn asked.
“We’re too much alike,” It admitted to the Dawn as the model solidified into its previous state. “When opposites attract, parallels repel. And I don’t want to watch him make the same mistakes. I don’t want to see him trapped like this; cursed like this.”
“And We’re saying We don’t think he will. He’s chaotic enough that We can’t predict him perfectly, but the more We observe and interact with him, the more We believe he has an acceptable plan to rejoin her. We agree that he does intend to ‘experience reunification with his beloved in the immediate sense of their prior coterminality’. But not by descending to desperate acts. His strategy is a long shot, but perhaps not as long as an outside observer would conclude. The kid’s view of reality can be marvelously inverted at times.”
“What’s his plan?”
“He thinks she’s even crazier, more obsessively in love than he is, and he’s putting his faith in the conviction that she’ll find her way back to him. All he has to do is stay alive long enough for her to do it.”
“No!” the Contract roared. “Things do not work that way!”
The Dawn moved closer and clasped It’s notional shoulder. “Things didn’t work that way for you. But maybe, just maybe - if they can pull it off - maybe that can change to things not having worked that way for you. . .yet.”
“No. I am not a creature of faith,” It asserted.
“We’re all creatures of faith,” the Dawn disagreed. “If not faith that there’s meaning to Our existence, then either faith in the possibility of that, or faith in the unprovable proposition that there categorically isn’t. Faith is unavoidable. There is the Dao that can be named, and the Dao that cannot.”
“Mysticism,” It said.
“Exoterism,” the Dawn said, and rose in departure. Once their conversations reached that point of divergence, they were over.
The Contract looked at the model. It could make it work. It just had to. . .participate.
It stared at the multidimensional symbology defining the Ancient Grimoire.
“I hate immanentizing,” It grumbled. “Even if you don’t bother with metabolism, other stuff gets on you. And beings emote at you, and expect reciprocation.
“Stupid, innovative, Transform, UPGRADE!”
"He thinks she’s even crazier, more obsessively in love than he is, and he’s putting his faith in the conviction that she’ll find her way back to him."
No idea what Justin's plan was. None. Started typing, and by the time I finished 'thinks', boom, there it was. And then I had the final victory condition for the series. I had the long-term tension ratchet. I had his core strategy.
I had the Shop's name.
And more.
This is why I write. Moments like that. It's indescribable.
I've never seen anyone flip the Distressed Damsel trope that way, and I'm so, so happy with how it casts Chloe in the active role without diminishing Justin.
Who the Celestial Court think Chloe is -
WARNING! BEETLEJUICE SPOILERS!
Like, Movie's Crowning Moment of Awesome spoliation.
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Agree with you in your spoiler fantastic idea & if you want you can write her perspective(hopefully another book entirely) with some cheeky tie-ins
Oh, there's definitely going to be some Chloe POV sides someday (and more MIS novels after this one, eventually). Just gotta make sure they do all this buildup about her in the main story justice, y'know? And I'm still not good enough to write that well on demand. . .
many Thanks For the Chapter
Thanks for reading, and commenting!
yandere confirmed
Ketsuidere. She's more than a can-dere; she's a will-dere.
(My MTL Japanese is probably awful)
@Flannel patent that idea
@KyoTheDungeon Hmmm I should check with an anime reddit/forum about other possible example characters. And some japanese language forums about the right term.